


some got gold and all them diamonds

by Laylah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comfort, Drug Use, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Sloppy Interspecies Makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You want a motherfucking guide, chica?"</p><p>"No," you say, and it comes out flatter than you meant it to. "I'd have to want to <i>go</i> somewhere for that."</p><p>He doesn't pester you to get moving, like an NPC should. Instead he kind of laughs, and you want to believe it's sympathetic. "Well, here, then," he says. He stands up—and up, and up, jeez, he's like seven feet tall at least—and holds out the cigarette to you. "How about a sister up and joins me for a smoke? Good for chilling out all them head bees."</p>
            </blockquote>





	some got gold and all them diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> For mulattafury on tumblr, who is fabulous and deserves all the nice things. :33

When you get into the medium and out of your colonyblock, you...well, you wish to fuck you had more liquor in your sylladex than you do. It looks like pictures of old Earth, really old pictures where everything's in shades of gray, this city with nobody living in it. There are neon signs everywhere but most of them won't light up, and the ones that do seem to fizzle and burn out whenever you look at them too hard. Way to rub it in, game. You're still alone.

You set out from your colonyblock and down one of the streets, because what else are you going to do? The option to just quit and not play is _thoroughly_ off the table by now. You don't really have a destination in mind. You're just...just _going_.

And then you see a person there, sitting cross-legged on one of the sidewalks up ahead. Or...not exactly a person, you realize as you start to get closer. Those are horns sticking up on either side of his crazy-looking purple hood, and they just might be real. His face is painted, white and gray. You keep walking. You have a gun.

You stop a few feet away, and he smiles at you, black lips and long rows of jagged teeth. "You," you say, pretty damn sure of yourself, "are not supposed to be here."

"Ain't that the motherfucking truth," he says, nodding calmly. His voice is rich and dark and musical. "Props to my wicked sharp little sister for picking that one right up." He pulls a fat hand-rolled cigarette out of thin air with a flick of his wrist, brings it to his lips, and snaps the fingers of his other hand to light it with a tiny flame. "Ain't none of us supposed to be here no more, but here we motherfucking are."

One of the neon tubes on the nearest building fizzles and flickers, giving off a few seconds of orange light before it blinks out again. "Am I dreaming?" you ask.

"Naw, you're awake," the guy says. "Might be you're all up and waking for the first motherfucking time." He takes a long pull on the cigarette and then exhales a long stream of green smoke that curls improbably up into a smiley face. "You want a motherfucking guide, chica?"

"No," you say, and it comes out flatter than you meant it to. "I'd have to want to _go_ somewhere for that."

He doesn't pester you to get moving, like an NPC should. Instead he kind of laughs, and you want to believe it's sympathetic. "Well, here, then," he says. He stands up—and up, and up, jeez, he's like seven feet tall at least—and holds out the cigarette to you. "How about a sister up and joins me for a smoke? Good for chilling out all them head bees."

"Head bees, huh?" you say. You're feeling reckless enough to take the cigarette out of his huge clawed hand. The smoke _smells_ green, which makes no sense but is also absolutely true.

"Yep," he says. He gestures at his own head with both hands, long bony fingers waggling. "Them nasty little things as get all to buzzing up in your think pan, telling you shit as ain't no motherfucking good for nobody."

 _I want a million boondollars and a sexy boyfriend and the death of the batterwitch_ , you think really loudly, because you wished for liquor and the medium seems to have at least given it a good try. Not quite there but close. "You got a name, mister guide?" you ask. You bring his fancy cigarette to your lips and inhale, watching him.

"It's Gamzee," he says, grinning. The smoke fills your lungs and you start getting dizzy right away, wow. "Ain't going to get bent all the fuck out of shape about it if you just go hey you, though."

You exhale and the smoke makes a martini glass without you even trying. You giggle. " _That_ ," you say, "would clearly not hold up once we meet up with anybody else. I guess I could switch to 'hey motherfucker,' though." You take another drag to see about smoking out a few more of those head bees. "I'm Roxy," you say through your held breath.

Gamzee nods, holding out one big paw to retrieve his apparently awesome drugs. "It is one fine motherfucking miracle to meet you, chica," he says. He takes a long pull, the lit end of the cigarette glowing dying-sun red. Your next exhale comes out in the smoky shape of a kitten.

Maybe it's just because that sharp green smoke is putting all your head bees right to sleep, but you find yourself nodding in agreement. "I have to say it was about. damn. _time_ for a miracle or two," you tell him.

"Preach it, sister," Gamzee agrees. "No better time than right the fuck now to be all experiencing that kind of beautiful."

When you close your eyes it feels like the world is spinning slightly around you. It's different from drinking, though you'd have trouble explaining the difference in precise terms. More reaching-out than closing-off, maybe. "You run across any other miracles around here?" you ask. "I could use a few more."

"Well, shit," Gamzee says. "Let's get our ramble on, chica, and see what all we can be finding." He takes your hand.

For a second you're just impressed at how well this game is built, that it could talk you around when you'd refused to be "guided." Then you push that thought away because you really don't want Gamzee to be just a clever game mechanic. "Your hand is cold," you say. Carpacians have little slick claws; Gamzee's hand is a lot more like yours, bigger and rougher but textured like skin.

He nods, passing the cigarette to you again as you start walking. "You got them hot little redblood paws," he says. That makes perfect sense, the way your brain feels right now. Of course you do.

A few more steps and his turn for a drag and you ask, "So are you an alien?"

"Your motherfucking planet, isn't it?" Gamzee asks, looking down at you sideways. "I guess alien's what I'm up and being, then." He sounds pretty entertained by it.

"But you're not on the batterwitch's side, are you?" you ask, because you don't think so, you don't _want_ him to be, god, you have company who's actually here with you and can talk with you and—

"Shit, no," he says, "she's got her harsh on all over my best friend, that's no kind of empress I'm up and breaking heads for."

"Good," you say. You don't want to be enemies. You don't want to let go of his hand. "I mean, not good that she's after your friend. Good that you're against her too."

Gamzee squeezes your fingers, almost too tight but not quite. "Hell fucking yes we are, babe, my motherfucking friends are all up and headed this way to help you on out with winning this bitch."

You squeeze your eyes shut and try to ride out the feelings in your chest. "I think I might need to hug you," you warn him.

"Chica, you go right on and do what your heart up and says is right," Gamzee tells you calmly.

You hug him. Probably you're terrible at it, but he doesn't say so. He just wraps his long arms around you while you crush your cheek to his chest and hold onto him, and you can feel the slow rhythm of his breathing. You can hear his heart beating, this weird three-beat rhythm instead of the two beats of your own. He pets your hair, runs his claws down your back gently enough to be soothing.

"Been a long motherfucking wait," he says.

"Yeah," you say.

"You ain't gotta be lonesome no more," he says, and the hum of his voice in his chest rattles right through you. Somehow that makes it feel extra true, and you sniffle. "Come on, chica, these peepers spy a fucking bitchtits spot to get our chill on," Gamzee says. He leaves an arm draped over your shoulders, almost too heavy but _real_ so you don't care, and you lean into him as he leads you down a side street to find a tiny black-and-gray park with a pond in the middle.

The two of you sit down on a bench and share another of Gamzee's miracle cigarettes, watching reflected neon flicker in the water. You tell him about fucking everything, how Dirk drives you up the wall and how poor Janey can't get it together and doesn't even know how little time she has, and how you've known for so long that everything you wanted was out of reach, and how cosmically unfair everything is. He tells you about some of the awful shit his friends have been through in their version of the game and the people he's lost along the way. You know he's leaving things out but so are you, and the lights shimmering on the water are beautiful, and you can't stay too upset when you're blowing smoke animals for each other and he keeps giving you that smile.

Fuck it, you only live once. "Do aliens shotgun?" you ask as you take what's left of the cigarette out of his hands.

You can see his brows go up, through the white of his makeup. "Could be we do," he says.

"Hold still, then," you say. You get up on your knees and steady yourself with a hand on his shoulder, stretching up as you take your next drag. The smoke is hot in your lungs, tangy in the back of your throat, and Gamzee's lips part as you lean in. You seal your lips together and exhale, and his shoulder rises under your hand as he breathes in the hit you just gave him.

His eyes are crazy intense when you pull back, gold around deep, purply gray. He lets the smoke trickle out between the jagged points of his teeth and your stomach flip-flops, but not in a bad way. "A brother could be all about more of that sweet noise," he says.

"Yeah, a brother might not be the only one," you tell him with a wink, and suck down another heady drag to pass on. He plucks the cigarette—the last tiny bit of it—out of your hand as you exhale, and it feels like he's sucking the breath right out of your lungs as he breathes in.

Gamzee sucks the last drag off the cigarette and flicks the butt away, toward the water, beckoning you close. You drape both arms around his neck and let him shotgun you this time, broad hand at the small of your back as he gives you that last kick of rich, vivid green.

You tilt your head back long enough to exhale and then you're throwing a leg over his lap as you lean into him again. No excuses this time, nothing going on here but good old-fashioned makeouts, the kind the batterwitch never could actually wipe out. Gamzee smells like greasepaint and chemical sweetness, and his mouth tastes like sharp burning herbs, and his two hands together cover your entire back as he pulls you closer. You nip at his tongue and the noise he makes is half laughter and half purr.

You might have gotten kind of a raw deal, overall. Your whole stupid universe, actually, might be kind of a raw deal. But fuck that, you decide, giddy with smoking and kissing and finally not being alone. Fuck the universe. Roxy Lalonde is not going down without a fight.


End file.
